My Portland blog: In praise of Portland businessman John Helmer Jr.

View full sizeBoise Voices Oral History ProjectJohn Helmer Jr. and his wife Beverly paid a visit to Boise-Eliot School in the spring of 2010, where they met with then-3rd graders Dominique Stone and Melissa Torres-Duran (right) and other students working on an oral history project.

Until his death Monday at age 88, John Helmer Jr. was for more than 50 years a fixture at the men's clothing and hat store founded in downtown Portland by his father.

As Portland writer Apricot Irving recounts, the white-haired haberdasher was an avid traveler and outdoorsman and the epitome of good manners.

"Surrounded by ascots, hamburgs and pocket squares, the frail, dignified Mr. Helmer was unfailingly courteous to everyone he met," she writes.

"At 87 years old," she adds, "Mr. Helmer still had not lost his sense of adventure.
He returned to Sweden with his son in September, 2010, for one final
visit to the family homeland. "